Singapore NTUC labour group to be a ‘politically significant person’. What does this mean?

The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), an umbrella group of workers’ groups, established a close relationship with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) as early as the 1960s, and has been a launching pad for the careers of many politicians in the country, said Felix Tan, an independent political observer.

“If one were to trace the trajectory of some of our political leaders in the PAP, many of them come from the labour movement,” he said, citing examples such as Singapore’s former president Halimah Yacob. “The NTUC in itself, having given birth to all these individuals, is going to make it a politically significant actor.”

The NTUC would be the third organisation designated as a politically significant person under Singapore’s foreign interference law, which would require the labour movement to make annual disclosures on political donations of S$10,000 (US$7400) or more, as well as foreign affiliations.

“The Registrar has assessed that given NTUC’s close nexus and symbiotic relationship with the People’s Action Party, it is in the public interest for countermeasures under FICA [Foreign Interference Countermeasures Act] to be applied to NTUC,” the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

Its designation was a “pre-emptive measure”, the ministry told local media outlets. “It is not because NTUC has been compromised by a foreign actor, or has committed any wrongdoing nor anything of concern.”

The manpower ministry has also said it will “continue to work with NTUC as a key tripartite partner” and that the labour movement has complied with the Trade Union Acts, according to local media reports.

Kasthuri Prameswaren, a Singapore University of Social Sciences lecturer specialising in Singapore and Southeast